TVOntario

Governance, funding and other responsibilities

TVO is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors, and supported by a network of Regional Councillors from across the province. TVO also reports to the Ontario legislature through the Minister of Education, in accordance with the Ontario Educational Communications Authority Act.

Instead of following the model of the federally owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's television services, which shows commercial advertisements, TVO instead chose a commercial-free model similar to the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States. This model was emulated by later provincial educational broadcasters Télé-Québec in Quebec and Knowledge Network in British Columbia. The majority of TVO's funding is provided by the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Education, which provides $30 million annually, with additional funding provided by charitable donations.

TVO is also responsible for over-the-air broadcasts of the Ontario Legislative Assembly in some remote Northern Ontario communities that do not receive cable television access to the Ontario Parliament Network.

In 2002, the Ministry of Education transferred responsibility to TVO for the Independent Learning Centre, which provides distance education at the elementary and secondary school level.

TVO used to operate TFO (Télévision française de l'Ontario), a separate but similar network for Franco-Ontarian audiences. Before the launch of TFO, TVO aired French-language programming on Sundays. Even after TFO's launch, TVO and TFO swapped programming on Sundays well into the 1990s. TFO was separated from TVO and was incorporated under the newly formed GroupeMédia TFO, a separate Crown corporation of the Government of Ontario, in 2007.

Distribution

TVO is Canada's oldest educational television service. It established the country's first UHF television station in 1970, based in Toronto. TVO used to have the largest over-the-air coverage in Ontario, reaching 98.5% of the province with 216 transmitters; however this is no longer the case as the broadcaster shuttered the majority of its analogue transmitters except those located in some mandatory markets, which were converted to digital in 2012 (see Digital television and high definition below). TVO is carried on all cable systems serving Ontario (the alternative choice for those viewers in area that has been served by one of the service's defunct analogue transmitters). On satellite systems in Ontario, it is available on Bell TV on channel 265 and on Shaw Direct on 353 (on its Classic tier) or 55 (on its Advanced tier), and in high definition on channel 39 (Classic) or 539 (Advanced).

The main transmitter in Toronto uses the call sign CICA-DT, with its rebroadcasters using CICO-DT, followed by a number to denote their status as rebroadcasters. Many analogue transmitters had used the CICA-TV and CICO-TV callsigns, and CICE-TV, in the same manner, until the shutdown of TVO's remaining analogue transmitters on July 31, 2012.

TVO's transmitters are primarily located in Ontario, with the only exception being its Ottawa transmitter, CICO-DT-24, which is based at Camp Fortune in Chelsea, Quebec. There, it shares its site with its Quebec counterpart, Télé-Québec, and with most of the region's television and FM radio signals.

From the 1970s through the 1990s, TVO ran top-of-the-hour bumpers where an announcer would mention the channel allocation of the service's flagship station in Toronto, along with an allocation for one of its rebroadcast transmitters: "This is TVOntario. Channel 19 in Toronto, channel XX in (city or town)."

TVO initially announced plans in 2017 to decommission its transmitters in Ottawa, Belleville, Chatham, Cloyne, Kitchener, London, Thunder Bay and Windsor – keeping only CICA-DT in Toronto to fulfill license criteria – in an effort to cut costs by $1 million. Following negative reactions from TVO viewers and donors, the towns and cities affected, and advocacy groups such as Friends of Canadian Broadcasting the decision was reversed and the Government of Ontario agreed to increase its funding of TVO by $1 million.

Carriage dispute

On June 6, 2012, TVO dropped its signal from cable and satellite providers outside Ontario, due to a carriage dispute over compensation for distributing its signal to its subscribers outside the province. The network reached an agreement with Vidéotron, and then entered negotiations with Shaw Communications and Telus, but failed to reach an agreement with Bell Canada. TVO cited that: "...we believe that we have a responsibility to earn revenues from the sale of our service outside of our home province. TVO is willing to consent to cable and satellite distributors carrying our signal outside the province, provided that we're fairly compensated. Since cable or satellite distributors receive subscriber revenues driven by having TVO as part of their offering, we feel it's reasonable to be compensated. Unfortunately, we could not come to an agreement with Bell to compensate TVO for carrying our signal outside of Ontario, and the decision was made to cease offering our signal outside of Ontario." As a result, the only cable and satellite customers outside Ontario that can still view TVO are on the Quebec side of the Ottawa/Gatineau market.

It is unknown if the dispute or carriage restrictions also apply to the few cable systems in the United States that carry TVO.

1970s

The Ontario Educational Communications Authority (OECA) was created in June 1970 by then Education Minister Bill Davis. At that time, the OECA produced children's and educational programming which was aired on commercial television stations.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, acting on behalf of OECA, applied for and won a licence for the ministry's television station in Toronto. CICA, with the mandate of "[using] electronic and associated media to provide educational opportunities for all people in Ontario". The "CA" in the CICA callsign was derived from the last two letters in the OECA acronym. CBC operated the CICA transmitter while the OECA was in charge of programming. OECA assumed all operations of the station, independent of the CBC, when the provincial government declared the Authority an independent corporation in a 1973 Order-in-Council.

CICA signed on the air on September 27, 1970, operating at a radiated power of 423,000 watts video and 84,600 watts audio. Its studio facilities were located at 1670 Bayview Avenue (a five-storey office building that is still standing) and its 550 feet (170 m) transmitter antenna was located at 354 Jarvis Street on the CBC tower. In 1972, the station moved to its operations to a new studio facility at 2180 Yonge Street, where it remains. The station's broadcast name was "OECA", sharing the name of its parent organization, but began using the on-air brand "TVOntario" (and later just TVO) beginning in 1974.

In the latter half of the 1970s, the network began adding rebroadcast transmitters in other Ontario communities. Its first rebroadcast transmitter, CICO, signed on from Ottawa on October 25, 1975.

1980s-1990s

In 1987, TVO launched La Chaîne française, a French-language public television network which became TFO in 1994. In 1995, the Ontario government under Mike Harris promised to privatize TVO. They never carried through on this plan, but did cut its budget.

2000s

The positions of chair and CEO were divided in 2005. Film producer Peter O'Brian was appointed chairman and Lisa de Wilde became CEO. On June 29, 2006, the provincial Ministry of Education announced a major overhaul of TVO: its production capabilities would be upgraded to fully digital systems by 2009 (ministry funding would be allocated for this); and TFO would be spun off into a separate organization.

Moreover, programming changes were announced later that day: thirteen hours of new weekly children's educational programming was added, Studio 2 was replaced by The Agenda, and More to Life and Vox were cancelled. The move to digitize services represents a transition; The Globe and Mail quoted TVO CEO Lisa de Wilde saying “while television will remain an important medium for TVO, the days of defining ourselves as only a broadcaster are past.”

In 2002, the Independent Learning Centre, which is responsible for distance education at the elementary and secondary school level, and for GED testing, was transferred from the Ministry of Education to TVO.

Chairs and CEOs

Programming

TVO airs a mixture of original children's programming, documentaries, scripted dramas, and public affairs programs.

Children's programming is aired daily during daytime television branded as TVOKids, with the remainder programming aired during primetime and night time hours for adult viewers. Scripted dramas are typically foreign imports, past selections include the Danish political drama Borgen and the British police procedural New Tricks. TVO's first original drama series was Hard Rock Medical, a medical drama set in Sudbury, which first aired in 2013. Public affairs programming includes the flagship daily current affairs show The Agenda with Steve Paikin and an overnight rebroadcast of Question Period from the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

Although French-language programs were shown on TVO since its inception and gradually increased in number since then, they eventually moved to TFO (originally known as "La Chaîne française").

Former programming

All dramatic programming was required to have some educational content. Actors, journalists or writers were hired to provide commentary on shows that would place them within an educational context. For instance Tom Grattan's War was bookmarked by segments hosted by Andrea Martin that would use scenes from the series to discuss filmmaking techniques. Episodes of The Prisoner were hosted by journalist Warner Troyer whose segments included interviews with the actors and a discussion of various psychological, philosophical or sociological themes regarding the series. Similarly Doctor Who was hosted by science fiction author Judith Merril who would discuss each week's episode to explore various themes in science and science fiction. Saturday Night at the Movies continued to follow this format long after the requirement was dropped because of the popularity of its host, Elwy Yost.

Digital television and high definition

In August 2010, TVO began broadcasting in high-definition via a direct-to-cable HD feed. TVO commenced over-the-air HD broadcasting in August 2011, in compliance with the CRTC regulations. Except for Belleville, Chatham and Cloyne, TVO's transmitters are located within mandatory markets for conversion. Not all digital transmitters are currently broadcasting in high definition.

Transmitters

On July 31, 2012, TVO permanently shut down its remaining 114 analogue transmitters (14 full-power and 100 low-power) without converting them to digital; these were in areas of Ontario not considered "mandatory markets" for digital conversion by the CRTC. In many cases, TVO rebroadcasters were operating from CBC-owned transmitter sites and were shut down because of the CBC's 2012 budget cuts. Where TVO owned sites, it provided local communities the option of taking ownership of the towers and transmitters.

Among the transmitters that were converted to digital, the transmitters in Belleville, Chatham and Cloyne were not within a mandatory market. These transmitters were converted to digital on new frequencies (but without high-definition, an on-channel programme guide or other DTV-specific features), as channels 52 to 69 were being reallocated for wireless communication purposes. The conversion of these transmitters took place before TVO's announcement to close down its analogue transmitter network outside the mandatory markets.

On January 25, 2017 TVO announced it would be shutting down eight of its nine remaining digital transmitters, leaving only CICA-DT at Toronto's CN Tower in operation to maintain their current license. CEO Lisa de Wilde announced that shutting down the transmitters would save the broadcaster an estimated $1 million per year, but would also lay off seven transmitter maintenance jobs. Critics of the decision, including the group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, said that the changes would affect people who have no other options for accessing content.

On February 14, TVO formally applied to the CRTC to remove its eight transmitters from service.

In response to feedback from the towns and cities affected by the planned shutdown, as well as TVO donors and other groups, TVO reversed its decision to shut down the transmitters on February 17. According to TVO, the Government of Ontario agreed to increase TVO's annual funding by $1 million to offset the amount that would have been saved by shutting down the transmitters.